The views expressed in this column are solely those of the author and not nessesarily of UnrealNorth or its advertisers.

Written by Rogier "Bane" Groeneweg

As most of you guys know ClanBase holds a pretty big part of the ut2004 community. Since other leagues decided to drop ut2004 out of their competitions and cups ClanBase became one of the last big cup and ladder holders. As a holder of the majority of the European ut2004 community you are bound to get a lot of activity and a lot of players to support your cups. What comes with that is a responsibility towards these players to organize cups which are high quality and can facilitate these players.

As a fresh blood within the UT2004 community and the ClanBase crew I was offered the position of 1on1 DM cup supervisor. My responsibility was to maintain a cup, take care of the daily routines and do whatever I could to increase the overall quality of the particular cup. As most of the people on UnrealNorth.com know, the 1on1 DM scene is quite big and people still play a lot of duels. With about 230 signups for this cup, we realized that there was and still is enough crowd to make us a great cup.

Now that the cup has progressed about halfway through and the play-offs are getting closer by the day, I started to wonder. What have we done this season and what can/should we do next season. Looking at the sheer amount of signups is not enough, of course the cup is big enough, but what about the quality of the players? The last 1on1 DM EuroCup ended rather poorly as there was little enthusiasm from both sides of the fences. So it was decided that we wouldn't get a EuroCup this season. This decision let to the fact that a lot of the "professional" players had no interest in competing in this years OpenCup. Obviously this led to a drop in the player quality of the cup. I have to say that carefully though, as I'm well aware that the players currently playing the OpenCup are all gifted players who work hard to attain the level of competitively. It's a fact however that it would be really interested for other people in our community to see players like po1son fight scrmz, would it not?

So, the big question is, how can we make you like ClanBase cups again, and how can we make ClanBase like our community enough to grand us privileges? Obviously I can't speak for ClanBase as some decisions our out of my hands. What I can do and will do is try to convince ClanBase that we have a right to hold a EuroCup. One of the ways I can use to show ClanBase we are big, supportive and competitive enough to hold a premium quality cup is to show them our community stands by its game and is willing to support us. It is really important for you guys, the community to show each and every single person that we are a group of people who share a passion for UT2004 and that we are willing to hold a tournament that bulges from quality and performance!

At the moment both Jelle (known as ooLaLa) and me (Rogier) are working really hard to uphold the quality of our OpenCup. Together with the help of some faithful admins (jstx, infringer and van), ShoutCaster (RubberChicken) and UTV admin (Cosmo), we hope to show you guys that there is enough willingness from our side to work for a EuroCup. But if we wish to grow and gain more respect of the rest of ClanBase we will be needing help in both a practical sense and a supportive way. We need people to help admin wars, to create proper predictions, support for wars and guidance for new players. We need you to step up and help us out. We need people to watch our games, even if your favorite player is currently not in the cup. If we want to become more successful, the community has to stand up and show that it is willing to backup their game and willing to put some effort into making our community stronger.

Don't look back at the past, look into the future and know this. When Unreal Tournament 3 comes out, a lot of players will be dropping ut2004 and pickup that game. This applies to most communities of ut2004, minus some special mods that have been developed over the past years. Look into the future and know that ClanBase admins/supervisors are likely to move along as well, ClanBase's head admin will still be the same people and they know just as well as us, that the same players will be occupying their cups. So even from a future point of view it is very healthy to show ClanBase, their sponsors, possible future sponsors and yourself that we are worth the EuroCup!

Since I addressed ways of helping us, the easiest way is to show your support and interest in the game. As of the 16th of May UT2004 Death Match has been given its own IRC channel, #clanbase.ut2004.dm (irc://www.quakenet.org/clanbase.ut2004.dm). Performing this channel and populating it is a very good way to show the size of our community. It can be used as a channel for coverage of playoff matches, it can be used as a place for socializing and it can also be used as a place to help new people and help each other with various problems.

Besides that we also have a cup running. A lot of playoff matches and the remaining group matches for certain divisions lack admins and coverage. As supervisor we supply everyone with the minimum amount of coverage (reports) and mental coaching, which they need to play these games. ClanBase (the supervisors) would appreciate any help given on this front. Becoming an admin is simple for those people amongst us who have fairly good English skills and common sense. You can subscribe to become an admin in the links I will be giving below.

To round up this article I wish to summarize everything I said in one good catchy sentences. Your involvement, commitment and support for the community is what makes and breaks the success of a game on ClanBase, show is what you are made off and turn our community into a success, for the very near future and for Unreal Tournament 3.

I appreciate the effort, that Bane has invested into this nice Column though I`m sorry to say that, but the reality will be always the same and always hard: Without prizemoney or something else worthfully to win, there will be never a "real" competition in the UT community. Only clans who play for fun and honor, like in every game which doesnt get support from the big leagues. It will always be like this.

The best example for this was the UnrealNorth 2on2 Cup. Once there were prizes they all suddenly popped up from the nowhere and we had like 80 signups with tons of top players who really wanted to win (most of them). Now imagine what would happen if there would be another CPL or ESWC with thousands of euros as prize money ? Or an ESL pro series etc etc etc... The game would be competitive again, every player would take it serious again and especially the leagues and Admins would be more competent and reliable (most of the CB Admin are not, I`m sorry to say that). You wonder why most of the clans don`t care about their matches and the game anymore ? It`s simply because there is no competition. And competition comes with the money. Sad but true.

Whether UT gets big tournaments with prize money or not doesn`t depend on the effort, that the community puts into the game, because EVERY community puts ambition into the game they love. It`s simply about the ammount of players and the popularity that the game has.

CS, WC3 have tons of players, so they get tons of money. Now WoW has become the most played game on the whole planet, and woops, suddenly they get big tournemants. Is the PVP system in WoW competitive? NO! But they don`t care, because the game is popular. The sponsors want popularity and reputation for the money, they put into the leagues and the game. So the size of the community and the popularity of the game are the only reasons, why a game gets big tournaments for a long period. And nobody can decline, that the UT community is really small...

I`m not someone who plays UT only because of the competition, if this would be the case, I would have stopped the game ages ago. But the facts, that I`ve written down in this post are true and will always be true.

Thank you for taking your time to write a real reply on what you think is the issue. As I'm realistic when it comes to what I hope is possible and what I know is possible at the moment, it's is never to late to start a discussion about the future possibilities that a game might have. As long as the masses don't hop onto the UT franchise the chances of the game becoming a 50.000 dollar tournament game are quite low. But with that said, if we could hog a smaller percentage, let's say 10% of that big heap of cash, where would that put us?

If you look at the status that ut2004 has within in the gaming community you will see that it's only a small game compared to games such as CoD2 and CounterStrike. However the part of the gaming community which does play UT2004 is a hardcore gaming community. The hopes I have for the future of the UT franchise is that people from the old community will migrate to UT3, unless it is really bad game, and carry on there. If that hardcore part of the UT2004 community is able to make the switch and with the hype create around the game it might grow to be a very big game. If we want to become a player in online gaming and lan tournaments we do need to show as a community that we are able to provide the public eye with state of the art graphics (the developer side) and with beautiful live action (the players). If we can achieve that, we might be able to move forward and raise the level of competitiveness, which increases the overall skill level and makes a game a pleasure to play.

That is what I think we can achieve, if UT3 doesnt turn out to be disappointing! Don't shoot me for sprouting my opinion by the way, this is all meant to start a discussion about possibilities and the things that live in the community.

Correct, dont look AT the post - but do look TO the past, ei. earlier UT2k3 TDM cups - thats how interest is kept even for matches not you do not participiate in yourself. On the other hand, you do need people willing to put in that amount fo work for free, and the amount of those is declining every day.

Competition follows entertainment and spectator value, UT2k4 is rather low on both and the community itself is largely to blame.

As Bane knows,I'm willing to help as a player in the cup and if i have the time, admin a few matches aswel, if we all do that... A good cup will be reality and companies might get interested in supporting us with some nice prizes.

Just remember people, a strong community doesn't start from the top of the ladder, it starts from he bottom. Without new blood and new teams keep it alive, the community will get stagnant and collapse yet again.

Remember that before you mention prize money, because that won't bring in the numbers, aside from that tiny minority at the top that has a chance to win it.